Wiretap: Eight bucks an hour

Twenty years, give or take, in the fast-food business, and Shonda Roberts, who now works as a cashier for KFC, makes 8 bucks an hour. Why would she strike for higher wages? Get to know her, and maybe you’ll see why.

Related reminder: This fall, McDonald’s announced its fourth-quarter profits shot up to $1.5 billion.

Fight for 15, as in dollars an hour, doing fast-food work. Via the New Yorker.

The fear economy will only be cured if people have real jobs (and not by ending unemployment benefits). Via Paul Krugman.

More than half who attend community college never graduate. How to fix that. Via the Atlantic.

The economists who think the best Christmas present is money. Those sentimental slobs. Via Ezra Klein.

Boulder’s battle with Xcel Energy to get more renewable power coursing through the city grid drags on. It’s a story worthy of magazine treatment. We don’t have that yet. But the Daily Camera sketches the storyline and suggests the stakes.

Speaking of magazine stories, David Brooks nominates his favorites of the year.